Freckles
by Liquid Laughter
Summary: She's probably the only Weasley in the history of ever to be born without the kisses of the warm brown sun-spots on her skin, and somehow she always feels naked at a family reunion.


_Disclaimer: If Harry Potter were mine, I wouldn't be struggling through a semester of biology lab right now._

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**She's** eight years old the first time she realizes that she resents her brother and sister. And her cousins, for that matter. But mostly her brother and sister.

Because, really, it's not enough that her cousins have perfectly normal, surprisingly unified, utterly identifiable, properly-Weasley looks: Aunt Hermione's soft brown curls, or Uncle Percy's redred_red_ hair, or Uncle Harry's startling black shock of mess, or Grandpa Weasley's twinkling eyes, and _frecklesfrecklesfreckles_ throughout.

Or that Victoire and Louis _both_ have disgustingly-blonde flowing hair that looks just like Mother's; that shines and glimmers and just _glows_ with every little motion, that makes her siblings look like they've swallowed starbeams. (And they've got freckles, too.)

She's probably the only Weasley in the history of _ever_ to be born without the kisses of the warm brown sun-spots on her skin, and somehow she always feels naked at a family reunion. Because even Aunt Hermione has a few brown spots dotting the bridge of her nose, and Aunt Angelina does, too, even though you can't see them until you're very close because her skin is such a lovely dark chocolate. And even though Uncle Harry doesn't have freckles (she always loved him, just a little bit more than the rest of them, whenever she saw him and remembered that), he's _Uncle Harry_ and he's the savior of the wizarding world and he couldn't fit in no matter how hard he tried because he's got his mum's green eyes and that mark on his forehead and he's saved the family too many times to ever be JustAnotherUncle (but she knows that's all he wants to be, so that's all she ever treats him as, and she knows he can guess at her game because he always hugs her just a little bit tighter than the rest of them).

But, really, it's almost injustice: to give her the pale Weasley skin (sans freckles) and the blue Weasley eyes (sans twinkles) and her hair, on top of that. Her hair…

Her hair is pink.

And not a pleasant, bright sort of pink, either, that says, "Hello, world! Here I am!" and makes people think of spunkiness and cheerfulness and perhaps bravery.

It's _pale_ pink (but very much pink, nonetheless); the sort of pink that makes one think of small little girls and childhood innocence and, Aunt Aubrey says, ballet slippers and peaches and a willowy, dancing sort of grace. (She's not graceful.) Grandmum Molly says it's a perfect, lovely blending of her mother and her father: her light to his bright, and very beautiful, too. (Her luminous sister is a beacon that sets the world a-glow, and Louis has the face of an angel.) James roars with laughter and teases her until she's so mad that she can't see straight and she's spewing incomprehensible French (which only happens when she's very, very angry because she's very much English, _merci_) and leaping on him with a fierce sort of shriek, pummeling him until he howls that _He's sorry; he's sorry! _and _Pink is a very lovely color, especially on her!_

But that's the problem, really. The fact that the pink is _on her_; that she's the only one affected, when all around her browns and reds and brilliant yellows blaze. She's growing up in an autumnal forest, and she looks like she belongs in a fresh, shy spring garden. And her lovely siblings, who she sometimes just looks and looks and _looks_ at because they're so wonderfully beautiful, have all the delicate grace and stature that their unusually-blessed parenthood has afforded them (she apparently inherited her genes from elsewhere), and somehow manage to fit in better than she does, for all the un-Weasleyness about them.

And sometimes she can't help the burning resentment, the _wantingwantingwanting_, that bubbles up inside her when she looks at family photos or hears someone pass her siblings and say, "Weasley, eh?" with a warm chuckle (because the only time anyone ever says "Weasley" around her, it's with a surprised tone and a question mark).

And sometimes she just wants to be away from them all, because she simply can't stand it, and she almost thinks that maybe she hates them.

And then she hurriedly draws the thought back with a fierce sort of horror, because she doesn't; not really, no. But in that half-second before her bitter brain and her loving heart have a firm chat with one another, she wonders if it would make her a bad person if maybe she meant it, just the tiniest little bit.

* * *

**She's** eleven the first time she comes to understand something very significant about herself; something beyond the realizations that she loves cool colors better than warm ones and that she's the only one in her family who can wear Chudley Cannons gear without clashing horrendously (because Al and James and Uncle Harry just look like Halloween and Rose's warm chestnut curls, when combined with orange of any shade, make her skin look sallow and Lily and Fred and Molly and all the others just look _awful_ and even her lovely siblings are too pale to really pull it off).

She's in the Great Hall, clinging closely to James' hand (she really does love him at times like this, when he knows she's scared and lets her draw her comfort from him, even though he'll tease her about it later when she's feeling better), listening to all the other first years being sorted. And his name is called, ("_Potter, James_!", and there go the whispers around the hall), and he squares his shoulders and takes a tiny little breath that no one but her sees, and he sits down resolutely on the stool, the hat sliding over his eyes. And she sees the way his shoulders almost quake, just a little bit, as the hat deliberates, and she sees his wide, relieved smile when he stands up ("GRYFFINDOR!"), and she suddenly realizes, very abruptly, that she _doesn't want that anymore_.

The pressure to fit in, to fulfill some ridiculous sort of expectation, simply because of her name. The wanting and the burning and the _needing_ because no matter how hard she tries she can't. She's a Weasley. By birth, if not by looks, and maybe someday even by deed. But she's not going to appeal to any sort of mold that "Weasley" has set, not anymore. No, thank you.

So when her turn is called, she sits down quietly and lets the Sorting Hat drop down over her eyes. And she waits. And waits. And waits.

And wonders if perhaps the hat is broken. Oughtn't she tell McGonagall if it is? And a soft, tired voice in her ear chuckles, and she starts.

_Erm…hello_.

"You're a rather interesting one, aren't you?"

_I suppose so._

…

…

"Well?"

_Well what?_

"Aren't you going to tell me where you want to go?"

_Isn't that__** your**__ job?_ The voice chuckles again, and beyond the immediate realm of her consciousness, she can hear muted mutters, probably wondering why the hat is taking so long.

"It's been my experience that _all_ Weasley children – or Potter children, for that matter – have a very decisive idea of what house they'd like to be placed in, or where they should be."

_I don't want part of any of that rubbish_, she thinks firmly, her mouth suddenly prim, even though no one can see it beneath the wide brim of the hat. _I want to go to the house that will suit __**me**__ best_. She can feel the hat physically shake with laughter this time (and it's a very disorienting feeling, seeing as the thing is still on her head), before a loud cry bursts out of it and her cousin whoops with glee.

* * *

As it turns out, she is the only girl, amongst her multitudes of siblings and cousins, to be sorted into Gryffindor. Victoire and Louis are both in Ravenclaw, along with Molly, who comes two years after her, and Rose, who comes a year after that (it would figure that her perfect siblings are brilliant as well as beautiful, but she loves them anyway, because she can't help it, because they're _Vic_ _and_ _Lou_). Hugo is a Hufflepuff when he finally gets to Hogwarts, just like Teddy Lupin was, though the elder boy has long since left the school (and it suits them, because they're both so caring and innocent and _accepting_). Lucy is, too, and so is Roxanne (which makes sense, after all, because Luce and Roxie are thick as thieves and don't like to be apart). Albus is a Slytherin, the sly little weasel, and two years after he gets sorted Lily dances over to the green-and-silver table to join him (and Dominique fears for not only her house team's chances at the Quidditch Cup this year, but also for her person in general, because they're both cunning, and sneaky, and brilliant, and now they both know it).

…And she's in Gryffindor, with James and Fred. And her father's proud, because it's _Gryffindor_, but she can tell that he's confused (because she's not a typical Weasley, and she doesn't make mischief, and he still thinks that perhaps Hufflepuff would have suited her better, even after all these years, even though he nevernever_ever_ says it). Her mother grins, happy because her little girl is, but she can see that behind the brilliant smile, her _maman_ is sighing and lamenting that no matter what house she was sorted into, the uniform would still alwaysalways_always_ look odd against the unusual color of her hair.

* * *

**She's** fourteen when she does it.

She's at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, having a snowball fight with Al and Scorpius, and they're all laughing and it's almost Christmas and her curtain of _palepink_ hair has fallen out of her ribbon and is hanging, damp, over her face as she scores a direct hit on Albus and crows in delight.

And Robert Biffler chooses that moment to walk by and wink and inform her that her hair is beautiful like that, hanging in a long, silky sheet (_just like Victoire's, only pink_) and she looks rather picturesque, standing in the snow, and he hopes she has a good holiday.

And she just stands there, frozen, looking at the place where he was just a moment ago, which allows Scorpius to pelt her with icy wetness and now it's his turn to crow. But she doesn't react, and Albus and Scorpius exchange smirks and think it's because of the compliments Robert has just paid her. She doesn't try to convince them otherwise, and is silent for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

The next morning she shows up late, lugging her trunk heavily, just in time to hurry into the compartment with Albus and Scor (because James and Fred are off causing mischief, and she doesn't trust any of the others enough to show them yet). Her cheeks are pink from the cold and match her hair, which is hidden by the obviously-Weasley-knitted beanie pulled low over her head. She stows her baggage and sits down beside her friends, chatting merrily, but Albus catches a flash of something soft and pink and decidedly _short_ poking out from under her cap, so he snatches the dark purple beanie off her head in a trice. And then he gapes and gapes and gapes and Scorpius hoots with laughter, because the ends of her hair – her long, smooth, luscious, pink hair – are now brushing her chin. And her hair is still verymuch pink, but it's also verymuch unlike Victoire's, so Dominique grins happily and lets her stunned cousin hesitantly pet at it until he cracks a wide smile and shakes his head at her pride.

* * *

She stands in the doorway of the train, her chin held up proudly, her eyes mutinous as she gazes imperiously out over them where they stand clustered on the platform, and their shock is a silent, tangible thing hovering thickly above them.

Then Uncle George lets out a loud, low whistle and Aunt Hermione whacks him sharply on the arm, making most of her uncles chuckle, but her cousins' eyes are wide and her father's mouth is a surprised little "o" and she can physically _feel _the impending crash of her mother's building hysteria, all because _'er 'air was long when she left for 'ogwarts and now it iz not_, and _wut on earth wuz she thinking, _and _oh, 'er beautiful, beautiful 'air_.

She feels a kind of vindictive pleasure at their horrified, stunned silence, and she wonders again, like she did when she was eight, if that makes her a bad person.

* * *

Uncle Ron is her favorite uncle; always has been. Even if she perhaps loves Uncle Harry just a little bit more than all the rest (because, really, some things can only be shared among freckle-less Weasleys, even if the other freckle-less Weasley is not technically a Weasley), Uncle Ron is her absolute _favorite_, because he's direct and he's honest and he always has an extra smile or joke for her (just for her, only for her).

And he knows what it's like to not be able to live up to your family in the expected sense. He has five older brothers, all with impressive track records: one's a handsome, intelligent, responsible curse-breaker; one tames dragons for a living and could play professional Quidditch if he wanted to; one earned nearly every award Hogwarts has to offer and practically runs the Ministry of Magic; two are ever-popular, ever-loved, successful and hysterically-funny pranksters (and one is forever a war-hero, eternally nineteen). And then there's the matter of Aunt Ginny, who's married to Harry-_blooming_-Potter and fought in The Resistance and isn't afraid to speak her mind and has the meanest Bat-Bogey Hex, like, _ever_.

…And then there's Uncle Ron, who was never quite talented enough, or dedicated enough, or intelligent enough (even though she thinks he's the smartest person in the world, other than Aunt Hermione and Professor Malfoy, because look at how brilliant he is at chess, and how much he knows about Quidditch, and what a fantastic Auror he is, and how he always knows precisely when she needs a hug).

He knows exactly how she feels. And she's always ever-so-relieved that he's her godfather whenever he comes up to her, concern on his freckly face (she can almost forgive him the freckles, because it's _Uncle Ron_), and puts his arm around her, asking, "What's wrong, Squirt?" in a low voice so that her mother can't hear. He gets what it's like to feel like you can't quite belong, no matter what you do, and just the knowledge that _someone else understands_ makes her swell with gratitude and think that maybe it's okay that she's got _palepink_ hair and no freckles and her eyes never do that twinkling thing her cousins' can.

So when they're back at the Burrow that night and she's sitting on the sofa, downcast (Grandmum Molly's chin quavers decidedly every time she glances at Dominique's hair), it means the world to her when he comes and sits beside her, arm around her shoulders, and ruffles her hair affectionately and tells her that it's lovely and that he likes it, and she throws her arms around his neck and bursts into happy tears.

* * *

**By** the time she's sixteen, there's very little left of the eight-year-old about her.

Her hair is still short (still pink), and she wears it in soft little spikes that wave gently about her head when she moves. Uncle Harry always grins when he sees her, tugging affectionately on one of the short locks, and fondly informs her that she reminds him strongly of Nymphadora Tonks (she always, _always_ loves Uncle Harry the best) while Teddy laughs. Her ears are pierced, just as her sisters' are, but instead of two colorful little gems swinging politely from each appendage, both her lobes are studded twice, and she's got three more piercings crawling their way up to the top of her right ear. Her fingers are adorned with silver rings, and her hands are covered with ink stains from her lack of care when using her quill (Louis never has dirty hands, but she doesn't care anymore). She knows how to curse prolifically in twenty-nine different languages, and responds only to "Dominique" (because she finally likes the way her name sounds, and calls of "Ms. Weasley!" just seem odd to her ears). On the weekends, she wears ratty old trainers and slightly-too-big denims that are covered with spilled ink and paint spots (the Room of Requirement makes a splendid studio, and she loves that color and shape and form are finally something she can control) around the castle, sashaying through the halls by herself while everyone else visits Hogsmeade.

Her mother thinks it's rebellion, but it's not, because if she was trying to rebel, she'd have been getting a tattoo right alongside Fred when she went with him to the ink parlor last year, even though she absolutely _hates_ needles. She does things because she _wants_ to, not because of the reaction she thinks it will draw from her parents, negative _or_ positive.

She gets good marks and she made prefect fifth year, and she's a damn good flier even though she's not on the house team. Her parents think that she has no real passions; not in the way Rose wants to be a Healer and Fred wants to be an inventor and Lily wants to be a journalist for the Quibbler. She's not too worried, even though her dad is, about the fact that she's going to be a seventh-year soon, because she _has_ her passions; she's just not sure how to combine art and Charms into a career yet. (But she'll figure it out, and in the meantime, Uncle Ron and Uncle Harry both have several paintings and sketches hanging in their respective offices in the Ministry, and their proud joy whenever she presents them with a new one is enough for now).

And even though she looks almost nothing like her eight-year-old self anymore, she's still very much that same little girl in several ways. Her eyes are still blue and she still slips unintentionally into French when she's angry and she can still pummel James when he teases her, despite whatever else he'd like to think. Albus and Scorpius are still her _bestbest_ friends, and Uncle Ron is still her hero, and she still loves Uncle Harry for not having freckles. She's still kind and slightly awkward and generally good-humored, and she still loves to hear Uncle Charlie's stories of dragons. She still scrunches her nose up when she's caught in a lie, and she still laughs – freely, recklessly – at herself on the rare occasions she trips over her feet and ends up sprawled on the floor (because she _has_ grown into a certain kind of grace, despite how much she scoffed at Aunt Aubrey's suggestions all those years ago).

Really, the only significant difference is that now she's comfortable with herself.

She still doesn't fit in with her family: they all eat, live, and breathe either Quidditch or academics; she flies for fun and would rather spend her time in front of an easel than a bookshelf any day. Most of them play pranks, at least time-to-time; she enjoys watching and hedging bets on the outcomes more than being involved in the schemes. She's miserable at Defense Against the Dark Arts and she talks to Professor Snape's portrait for fun because she's rather fond of the man's excessive sarcasm, and she never, ever, _ever_ wears her house colors (because red doesn't go at all with hair that is _still_ pink).

But she doesn't mind so much now that she knows who she is. And she's comfortable not being the stereotypical Weasley, because she's free to be her own person and despite how much she's wanted to be part of the group for the past _manymanymany_ years, something about that knowledge is utterly freeing.

And her smiles are wide grins, because she's only sixteen, and she's already got the important things in life figured out.

* * *

**She's** twenty, and, he decides as she smiles, utterly beautiful.

She dances around her cousin and her friend, the two boys protesting loudly as she tries to drag them out onto the wide patch of lawn where many of the other guests are swaying. Her hair is still short, just like she used to wear it (He digs through his memories of her from their seventh year. He remembers that she visited the unicorns Hagrid kept in the paddock, and danced in the corridors when she thought no one was looking, and sometimes kept a paintbrush tucked behind her ear.), and her dress is a _palepink_ to match her hair. He watches as she gives up on her friends and goes twirling across the grass by herself. (She wore orange quite frequently, and she talked with wide, sweeping gestures.)

Her hands aren't stained with ink for once (he supposes her mother forced her to clean up for Victoire's wedding), and she's put on a pair of low, pretty-sort of shoes that remind him strongly of little girls and childhood innocence and peaches and something else he's not quite sure of. (Or maybe her mother didn't have to force her into anything, he thinks, as she stops her twirling by the bride and groom to impulsively kiss her sister's cheek and gather her in a tight hug (Victoire beams; radiant) and laughingly accept a dance from an enormously-happy Teddy.)

He watches her from where he sits at the table with Professor Longbottom and Harry Potter and Ron Weasley (he can feel the third man's eyes on him, speculative; he's not unaware, unlike Lorcan, who's sitting, besotted, at a nearby table with Lucy, completely oblivious to the glares her father's throwing him from just a bit away as he explains one of his crazy creatures to her and she nods fondly, expressing her interest in his adventures), and he feels something in him shift.

He knows that everyone (_everyone_) considers Victoire the more beautiful of the two sisters (_because of the hair, and the figure, and the lilting voice and the sparkling eyes and the sprinkling of dainty freckles just across the bridge of her delicately-arched nose_), but he also knows that from now on, she's never going to be able to compare in his eyes to her little sister, whose looks are nowhere near as angelic but lean more towards spunky and cheerful and perhaps brave, and whose smile is so radiantly genuine and in-love with life and full of _tomorrows_, and whose eyes don't sparkle like those of her relatives because they burn, solid blue and full of dark fire (and sparkling is clichéd, anyway, and Dominique Weasley is anything but).

And he watches as her dance with Teddy ends and she gives her new brother-in-law a hug and drifts away from him to join a circle of people that is most definitely composed of Weasley relations. He thinks he can detect James' black hair that looks just like his father's (and Al's, across the yard), and the brown curls that characterize (oddly enough) Roxanne and Hugo, and the harsh, bright red of Lily's plait and Molly's tangles, and Louis' straight blonde hair that glimmers in time with the bride's.

She stands out, surrounded by her family, because she's so unique and special and _vibrant_, despite the pale tone of the pink in her hair. She embraces her differences; she's not afraid to not fit in.

He finds that he likes that quite a lot.

* * *

Suddenly, for some reason, her relatives are snickering and glancing over at her through the conversation, and she frowns, turning to look behind her where most of the glances seem to be directed. And then she's looking at a chest (because whoever it is _wretchedly_ tall) before directing her gaze upwards to see who it is.

She sees blonde hair (almost the same silvery-blonde as her siblings') and a soft, intelligent face, and blinks at the absence of the Ravenclaw tie that belonged to a quiet boy in her year back at school. She cocks her head at him slightly, silently asking him what he wants, and he holds out his hand in response, along with a shy smile (her cousins would want more elaborate invitations, but she's not all that fond of the dramatic). And because she knows she'll accept him (Lysander was always kind back at school, and she loves to dance), she pauses and stares at him for a moment (blocking out her cousins' poorly concealed whispers is something she's gotten good at). She gets too into the music once she starts dancing to notice anything going on around her, and she wants to see if anything's changed about him in the years since she last saw him (she likes observing people). He returns her gaze steadily, smile still in place and hand still extended.

She remembers help with Transfiguration homework (because she was only narrowly better at that subject than DADA), and a lightning-quick grin that always disappeared just as instantly as it came, and apples for her to give the unicorns when she snuck down to Hagrid's paddock to see them. She remembers concern that always ticked imperceptibly in his jaw when Lorcan didn't recognize malicious teasing about his blatant belief in odd creatures as anything other than good-natured camaraderie, and a steady hand in Potions. She remembers poems and Arithmancy equations and pieces of sonnets scribbled in the margins of homework or abandoned on forgotten spare bits of parchment (carefully collected and read and stored, whenever she found them, in the grungy box where she kept her charcoal pencils). She remembers a gentle suggestion that pointed her in the direction of the Ministry and courtroom illustration graphics and a job she loveslovesloves. And she remembers (faintly, _faintly_) a September 1st years and years ago when she watched through the train window as a woman full of quicksilver (like her mother, but without the heat of her mother's temper and passion) and a tall blonde man kissed two blonde twin boys and faintly bid them goodbye, before breaking into a conversation about creatures of what Aunt Hermione would have called "dubious existence". (One boy responded with enthusiasm and confidence to rival that of his parents'. The other boy shrugged noncommittally and hugged his mother tightly before stepping back, eyes already pragmatically assessing the compartments, to lead his eagerly-chattering brother onto the train.)

She looks back at him now, and his smile widens, as though he can guess at what she's thinking. He's a little more care-worn than he was three years ago, a little more serious, and he's grown _again_, and she pays a smidge more attention than she would have the last time they met to the way the faint blonde stubble along his jaw belies the boyishness of his stance and his rolled-up shirt sleeves, or how casually his blonde hair falls into his eyes.

Eyes that burn a deep and unrepentant hazel.

(His mother, father, and brother all have _blueice_ eyes.)

A funny, fluttering feeling growing in her stomach, she meets those lovely, lovely hazel eyes and smiles (and it's a wide grin, because she's not sixteen anymore, but she's still got the important things in life figured out), and his answering smile is brilliant as she takes his hand and he leads her to the center of the wide lawn where they pull each other close and start to sway.

…And she grins wider, presses him closer, when he smiles fondly down at her under the fairy lights, even if he does have silken, silver-blonde hair.

(She can't spy any freckles.)

* * *

_So I may have perhaps tampered with the ages of the Next Generation Weasleys to suit my purposes. So sue me. _

_(Please don't actually sue me. I'm a starving college student; I can't afford a law suit.) Hope you enjoyed it, regardless of my meddling._


End file.
